570 REVENUE AND TAXES. [ART. 81

1896, ch. 120.

195. If any person shall, with a view to evade the payment of
taxes, fail or refuse to give in to the assessor any bonds, notes,
claims or other evidences of debt which are subject to assessment
and taxation under this article, the same shall not be recoverable
by action at law or suit in equity before any of the courts of this
State, until they have been listed and the tax paid thereon, with
an addition of fifty per centum per annum from the time the
tax accrued, and the failure to give in said bonds, notes, claims
or other evidences of debt shall be taken as prima fade evidence
of the intention to so evade payment of taxes.

Ibid.

196. This article shall not in any manner affect the gross
receipts taxes levied on corporations for the year eighteen hun-
dred and ninety six or any preceding year or the valuation of
"property made or existing for the purpose of State, county or
municipal taxation in the year eighteen hundred and ninety-six,
or the collection of taxes levied thereon in said year, or in any
preceding year; and such valuation and assessment for said
year eighteen hundred and ninety-six may be increased or dimin-
ished and omitted property be valued and assessed to the owner
thereof during such year for such purposes under the provisions
of the general laws of this State in force on the first day of
January, eighteen hundred and ninety-six; provided, however,
that nothing in this article contained shall be construed to repeal,
alter or affect the provisions of section four of article four of the
public local laws of Baltimore city, in so far as the same relate to
the mode and measure of assessing and taxing the real and per-
sonal property within the present limits of the twenty-first and
twenty-second wards of Baltimore city, for city purposes; and
provided further, however, that nothing in this article contained
shall be held to discharge or release, impair or affect any irre-
pealable contract or obligation of any kind whatsoever, existing
on the 30th day of March, 1896, or to affect or to apply to any
pending civil suit, action or proceeding or to any pending prose-
cution for a crime or misdemeanor, or to prevent the prosecution
and punishment hereafter of any offense already committed, or
that may be hereafter committed, against the provisions, or any